


The Christmas Prince

by ShepherdSoreyDidNothingWrong (Sagnessagiel)



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: AU, Christmas Prompt, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Sormik Advent Calendar 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 11:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sagnessagiel/pseuds/ShepherdSoreyDidNothingWrong
Summary: My contribution to the sormik advent calendar 2018. My prompt was the movie "The Christmas Prince".An aspiring young journalist is sent abroad to get the scoop on a dashing playboy prince who's poised to be king.





	The Christmas Prince

**Author's Note:**

> Split into parts due to time restraint on my part. Thank you for your patience!

The first thing Mikleo thinks is that this has to be a trap. Somehow. 

He is in the middle of editing an article when the text comes, summoning him into Zaveid's office. He glares at it with much suspicion. 

Rose stops i her tracks halfway past his desks and reads it over his shoulder. 

"Ouch. That can't be good." She pats him roughly on the shoulder. "Good luck, buddy."

He ventures into the office with the air of a man walking with dignity towards an unknown punishment. 

Zaveid is waiting inside, reading through a stack of paperwork that will ultimately end up on someone else's desk to be done. He does not look up as Mikleo enters. 

Mikleo waits for a good few seconds before he goes to the polite cough, but Zaveid is adamant in ignoring him until he finishes the page. MIkleo coughs again, and Zaveid's eyes finally lift to him. 

"Mikleo, hello. Didn't notice you there." He stands up and lets the paper fall to the desk, uncaring of where it lands in relation to the other piles already littering it. MIkleo wonders whether it will end up on his desk later. 

"You had a task for me," he says with the utmost patience. 

"Right, I did have that. More of a mission, really."

That actually does intrigue him somewhat. It is unlike Zaveid to send him on anything but coffee runs, on account of Mikleo being the youngest and newest journalist in the office. He has edited more articles than he has written at a factor of ten to one. 

"What is it?" he asks. and does his best to keep the interest out of his voice. As much as he is trying to set all hopes aside, there is no denying the office rumours. Since the beginning of December, five stories that have actually been interesting have been handed out to people in the office to pursue. If Zaveid is calling him in to deal with something other than coffee, there is some chance however small that he might get out of the office for once. 

Zaveid slides a paper across the desk. Mikleo takes it and skims. 

"Rolance is holding its annual ball for Christmas, and it's time for them to crown a new king," Zaveid says. "They're crowning that playboy prince of theirs, and we need people on the ground to cover it."

On paper, and the way Zaveid describes it, it sounds like the biggest scoop of the year. The crowning of the new king of Rolance is one of the top events of the year. However, there is one part that Zaveid is leaving out, perhaps in the vain hope that Mikleo does not know of it. He does, however, know of it. 

He puts the paper down on the desk. "Prince Sorey? You want me to cover Sorey di Rolance's ascension?"

"That would be the guy, yes," Zaveid says casually. 

Mikleo feels his temper begin to flare, but he needs this job. He will not risk it over some indignance, though he will express it in a more respectful manner. No one ever said he was the most intelligent man in the office. 

"The Rolance royal family only allows the major networks of Rolance to cover their royal ceremonies, and the prince is notorious for not only disappearing for months on end but also avoiding journalists like the plague. You think I in my infinite wisdom will be able to suss out a man with his own fleet of bodyguards and secret agents? A man who doesn't want to be found?"

Zaveid winks at him, the bastard. 

"I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Mikleo opens his mouth, but the possibility of losing his job is a good motivator not to. They are sending him on an impossible mission, perhaps so that they can report to higher-ups that an attempt was made, perhaps just to get rid of him for a few weeks. Either way, he is staring down several weeks of no meaningful work ahead. 

Then again, none of his work here is very meaningful yet. At least now he is being sent into the field. That has happened one time since he started his job here, and the last time was covering a farmer's market outside the Shrinechurch. 

Mikleo resents the office and its head editor for hiring a perfectly capable and qualified journalist only to demote him to errand boy the moment he stepped into the office, but if there is a chance of moving up, he will take it, no matter how implausible it may seem. 

"Fine," he says, and lets some of his annoyance seep into his tone. To his credit, there is sympathy in Zaveid's eyes. 

"I have faith in you, Mickey," he says, and the odd thing is that he might mean it. "Go get 'em, tiger."

Mikleo leaves the office with little more than a quiet thanks. He has some packing to do and arrangements to make. 

* * *

He will be staying in Rolance over Christmas, he learns. After the briefing he just had, it only seems the cherry on top. At least his mother and uncle are understanding. 

He steps off a plane in the Pendrago airport, regretting most of the choices he has made in his life. The one that got him a work-related trip to Rolance's beautiful capital, however, is not one of them. 

The city is wondrous. Tall buildings with intricate stonework and cobblestones that stretch along cozy, winding streets. A quaint yet expensive tourist market and colourful lights on nearly every windowsill. It is different from Ladylake in that it takes on a shine of gold and green where Ladylake takes pride in its gentle blue, but there is no mistaking that the two cities were built for the same purposes: to house a royal family each and to be the pride and joy of said families. A thin sheet of snow turns it beautifully seasonal. 

Mikleo takes a cab to a hotel that lies on the edge of the city, towards the great gates. It is the cheapest option they could find to put him as close to the palace as possible, yet even it is of higher quality than anything Mikleo could afford himself. Privately he considers it a good start for compensation as far as this "mission" is concerned. Considering all the work he will be capable of doing, he might as well be on an actual vacation. 

Settling into a room at the second floor (on account of there being no rooms near the lobby), he wonders for a few surreal moments whether it would in fact be a better idea to take a vacation in all but name and then report the same failure to get the scoop that he would report should he give it his best effort, but something stops that thought in its tracks. This is a matter of not only pride, but principle (and also it would be wrong to use the money he has been granted like that, but he digresses). He was sent here to do a job, no matter how little faith there is in his ability to accomplish it, and he has never backed down from a challenge. Nevermind one where completing it will be a feat of pure spite. 

He sits down at the desk afforded to him in the corner of the room and begins to search the internet for any information on the ascension. Then he searches the royal family, then the prince. Sorey di Rolance may have avoided the spotlight for some time, but this time, perhaps he has met his match.

* * *

He learns a couple of useful things during his first few days in the city. His research proves most beneficial. 

First, the royal family of Rolance is not exclusive to the Rolance media. They simply prefer its presence to others, but it is apparently possible to be granted a pass to press conferences once in a while, judging by the articles from scattered parts of Hyland. That will be his first initiative, he decides. If there is such a thing as access to this family, he will find it. 

Second, prince Sorey may be avoiding interviews, but he cannot avoid the paparazzi. According to the less legitimate news sources in both Rolance and Hyland, the prince is a bit of a playboy and bar hopper. An adventurous personality, one might call it. Mikleo mentally files this bit of information to bring up with any potential sources he can get. 

Third, the royal palace is not very crowded on most days. He finds a surprisingly low amount of tourists when he first goes to visit it. Perhaps it has something to do with the seasonal market happening in the town square, or perhaps the royal family simply restricts the flow of visitors. It is relatively simple to get into the palace, and he even finds a press meet online that he can actually get a pass to. Whether or not it will work in his favour is another question entirely. 

After a wait of five hours, the journalists in the room have long since begun to stir with impatience. Mikleo feels himself do the same. As some of them begin to question the guards and get no straight answers, he wonders if they will see anyone from the royal family today. Perhaps they will not see anyone at all, and this is just stalling on an event which has in practice already been canceled. 

With no more news than they had at the start, Mikleo decides to go get some air. 

Few notice him slip out of the room. He is not the first to do so either, and he suspects that the others that have gone outside have already left. He has considered joining them more than once, but something in him will not let him leave until he has something he can report on. 

He finds a bathroom at the end of the second hallway he finds after asking one of the guards for directions. While he is in there, he checks his hair and shirt in the mirror. This may be an informal press meeting without any cameras in it, but there are few places other than Pendrago's royal palace where he has ever felt so underdressed. Everyone he has met so far have been in formal wear, barring the servants, who are actually dressed quite similarly to him. At least in colour, as they are all wearing the same shades of white and blue. He has a feeling that his clothes are a lot cheaper than those of the servants roaming the halls and keeping everything meticulously clean. 

He turns down the same hallway he entered to find his way to the press meet room. The only problem is that when he turns the corner, the door is no longer where it was when he left it. He stops in surprise in front of an empty patch of wall, flanked by two paintings which are probably more expensive than his apartment back in Ladylake.

Looking around and finding everything and nothing familiar, Mikleo comes to the realisation that he has gotten lost in the palace hallways. They are all the same shade of white, the only difference the decorations and the placements of doors. It is not enough to go on, and he ends up wandering back and forth in search of the painting he remembers seeing of a family of five in ballroom clothing. No such painting appears, and he ends up wandering down so many hallways that he at last comes to the conclusion that he will have to find someone to ask for directions. That becomes his new mission, at first with little more success. Then he turns a corner and sees a harried-looking woman in a powder blue dress carrying a basket of linens. 

Mikleo walks up to her, fully intending to ask for directions back to the press room, but the woman speaks before he can get a word out. As soon as she sees him, she bursts out, "There you are!"

Mikleo's eyebrows raise. He blinks once, twice, then, "Excuse me?"

The woman abandons the basket and strides up to him with a look on her face that means life or death. She grabs his arm and begins to drag him back down the hallway. Her grip is surprisingly gentle, considering how firmly she holds him. 

"The matron has been looking for you all morning," she says. "You're very late. She needs you to report in at her office. Has anyone told you where to go?"

"Uh..." Mikleo frowns in absolute confusion. "No?"

The woman shakes her head in exasperation. "Of course not. Here."

She positions him at the end of the hallway and grasps his chin, directing his gaze towards the hallway to the right. 

"Take that hallway, then turn twice to the right, up the stairs, left, then right." She rattles it off like a laundry list, and he struggles to memorise it quickly enough. "I know it's your first day and the palace is confusing, but the matron will have your head for being late, so you need to play this correctly. Tell her that Marina needed help with the west wing, and that Norman was unavailable. She'll let you live."

She pushes him forward and he thinks that it is probably unintentional that he hears her mutter "I hope" under her breath. He turns and opens his mouth, intending to tell her that there has been some form of misunderstanding. Then something sparks in his mind. 

"Thank you," he chokes out and turns to practically jog down the hallway. If his intuition is correct, and he hopes it is, then he has just been given a chance that should not exist. His impossible mission may be possible after all. 


End file.
